“I am an Arab by birth, a Greek by primary education, an American by residence, a Russian at heart, and a Slav in soul” (St. Raphael [Hawaweeny], Bishop of Brooklyn)
Here is the self-definition of an American Orthodox saint who fell asleep in the Lord in 1915. He labored for the unity of all Orthodox Christian Churches and faithful, and for that the Orthodox Church in America recognized him as a saint. It was our Church that canonized him, because he represented all that we say we stand for. In a keynote address by Fr. Josiah Trenham to the Parish Life Conference of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of which he is a priest, he offers a challenge to the laxity among us in our supposed quest for unity. He calls our separation “The Curse of Jurisdictionalism in America.” Strong words, but he’s right. It is a curse which we have chosen to live with and tolerate far too long. I am so weary of hearing the basic theme at nearly every Sunday of Orthodoxy gathering: “Some day— One day—” but not today. Every speaker cries out with the same prophecy—unity in America among all Orthodox Christians by and by, and not too long in coming. Please be patient. In the way we approach the curse, it’s more likely our Lord Jesus Christ will return before unity comes about.
It’s indicative that an Antiochean priest, likely by his name a convert, is calling for unity. The Antiochean Archdiocese has taken the initiative that once was the Orthodox Church in America’s. Just read the rationale for the Tomos of Autocephaly granted the Orthodox Church in America by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970. We sought to be free from allegiance to the Russian Orthodox Church, our Mother, because we claimed that it was time to grow up. We were no longer children; we could stand on our own. We had been held down far too long. We wanted freedom to take spiritual ownership for the Orthodox Christians in our land. We had a dream of being that catalyst for uniting all who are canonically Orthodox in North America. We were impulsive. We could no longer wait for SCOBA to come around. It failed the dream. It was clear that the Greek Orthodox Church among others was not about to bond with the jurisdictions that sought identity as American Orthodox. Even our name was changed from the “Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America” to “The Orthodox Church in America.” Not yet “of America,” because that would be the final nomenclature for the Church united. I always liked the acronym: OCA. In Russian it means “wasp,” and that’s what I thought we were chosen by God to be—the agitator, the trouble-maker for all too sluggish, too reticent, or too attached to Old World ties. We were out in front yelling behind us to catch up and join us in the avant garde. In St. Paul’s phrase: “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead I press toward the goal” (Philippians 3:13). And that goal was unity of all Orthodox jurisdictions in America.
We lost the leadership, because we misplaced the dream. Who’s to blame? All of us, starting with our clergy. How foolish of me to assume that the more convert clergy and monastics entering the Orthodox Church in America, the more Americanized we would be. They would look and act like mainstream Americans, and that would entice normal folk to try us and see if they could identify with our faith and spiritual life style. That’s hardly what happened. Many of them strive to look more Russian than the immigrants from that nation, or they visit Russia and bring back with them the looks and customs they pick up over there.
We are at present undergoing a painful, shameful financial plight. Details are still not clear, but what is certain is that much of the money that was used up in the past recent years had been spent on trips abroad, to the Old World patriarchates. One lesson that may offer some sort of redemption in these troubled times will come about if we turn from our nostalgia for whatever is across the Atlantic Ocean and concentrate on the salvation of our fellow citizens here in the New World. Repent means turn around. Concentrate on America. Go west, young men and women.